Electrical circuits are often wired in a parallel manner wherein individual circuit nodes each have their own parallel power and ground electrical lines. For example, the various lighting circuits in a typical household are wired in parallel to each other. Parallel electrical wiring allows for individual control of each different parallel electrical circuit. Thus, each electric light in a household can be individually controlled by turning on or off the light switch that controls the associated light.
However, parallel wiring of individual circuit nodes has some disadvantages. For example, parallel wiring requires a greater amount of physical wiring to operate the same number of circuit nodes since each individual parallel circuit requires its own dedicated parallel physical wiring. This additional physical wiring burden of parallel circuits increases the overall cost of the system since more physical wiring conductor material and wiring insulation material is required to construct a parallel system instead of a serial system. Additional labor is also generally required to install all the different individual parallel wired circuit branches. Furthermore, a parallel wired system will often consume more energy since there will be greater conductor losses in the system.
To reduce the amount of physical wiring required, the individual circuit nodes in a multiple circuit-node system may be arranged in a serial configuration. Alternatively, the individual circuit nodes may be coupled to a common bus wherein the multiple different individual circuit nodes all access a shared set of conductors that make up the common bus. In a serial configuration or a common bus configuration, it is difficult to individually access the different individual circuit nodes. Thus, when arranged in a serial configuration or a common bus configuration the individual circuit nodes are often assigned unique addresses such that each individual circuit node can be communicated to individually using the circuit node's unique address. For example, many digital networked devices are assigned a globally unique media access control address (MAC address) for use on the digital network interface. The existence of a globally unique MAC address for each digital network interface allows a networked device to be added to any compatible digital network and immediately be recognized as a new unique device on the digital network.
Assigning a globally unique MAC address to every individual network device is not a simple process. In order for all of the MAC addresses to be globally unique, an industry organization must maintain an addressing system for ensuring that all of the network devices are assigned globally unique addresses. For example, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) manages three different types of MAC addresses according to the rules of three address numbering name spaces. Every vendor that builds a network product designed to include a MAC address must register with the IEEE, obtain a set of MAC addresses, and ensure that every unique network product that the vendor manufactures includes a uniquely assigned MAC address from the set of MAC addresses received from the IEEE. Thus, every network product manufactured that includes a MAC address will not be identical (due to the need of a unique MAC address) and this complicates the manufacturing process. Specifically, the manufacturing process must include steps for assigning a unique MAC address to each different network product that is manufactured.
Having a unique address is necessary in order to identify different individual circuit nodes organized in a serial configuration or a common bus configuration. However, the task of assigning unique addresses to mass-manufactured electronic products complicates manufacturing process since each individual electronic product will not be identical. Therefore, it would be desirable to improve the techniques for assigning unique addresses to mass-manufactured electronic products.